


Instinct

by Swiftsure



Series: Wolf Pack [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Corporal Punishment, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jon whump, M/M, Pack Dynamics, Protectiveness, Scent Marking, Wolf Pack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-03-29 15:10:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19022446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swiftsure/pseuds/Swiftsure
Summary: Jon is placed with Tormund's pack by Mance Rayder. Tormund comes to feel protective over him.NB: probably won’t update for a little while. I’m doing rewrites to some chapters. I definitely intend to come back and finish this. Sorry for the delay.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU where Mance's army doesn't move on the wall as quickly as in canon, so Jon lives among the wildlings for a longer stretch of time, pretending to be a deserter.
> 
> This is a wolf pack AU, so there will be pack dynamics and scent-marking, there are alphas but it's not a/b/o.
> 
> This fic is based on the TV show, not the books. I'm using OCs to fill out the Free Folk ranks and won't be including any book characters who don't appear in the TV show.
> 
> I've been doing some edits to this fic. I'm sorry if there's any confusion with parts being moved around.
> 
> >My replies to comments were deleted when I moved this fic over to this account, sorry for any comments that got lost.

"I place him with your pack, Tormund." Mance looked past Jon, to the bearded man. "Ned Stark's bastard. The Starks are wolfish folk - or they were."

Jon sensed movement behind him.

"Come, boy."

Jon was glad to quit the tent. He felt dizzy with relief as he followed the bearded man out through the tent flap and into the white numbing chill. 

He had survived Mance's questioning. Qhorin Halfhand had not died for nothing.

The man, Tormund, led him through the camp. Jon looked around for Ygritte, but he could not see her among the scowling faces. She still had Longclaw. How Jon missed the weight of the sword by his side.

_"Crow."_

_"Fucking crows."_

_"Scum."_

A man spat at Jon as he passed.

Tormund stopped at a tent and held the flap aside. "Inside." 

Jon ducked his head and stepped into the dim interior. 

There was a fire crackling in a pit and a boy look up startled from where he was sat with a basket in his lap.

"Micah, fetch some clothes for this one," Tormund said with a careless gesture to Jon.

The boy scrambled to his feet, knocking his basket over.

"Quickly," Tormund added.

The boy stared at Jon with round eyes, then slipped from the tent.

The fire popped. Tormund went to stand before it with his hands spread, his back to Jon.

He was a large man. The firelight caught his red beard and hair in a bright halo as he turned his head, and with his face in profile he said,

"I take you under the protection of my pack, little crow."

"I thank you for it," Jon said stiffly. He thought of how he had knelt before the man, mistaking him for Mance Rayder, and his insides squirmed.

Tormund turned slowly to face him.  

"If I smell something I do not like," he said quietly, stalking towards Jon, "I will gut you. If I find you are a spy..." He halted so close that Jon had to lift his chin to meet his eye. "Your death will not be fast. Depend upon it."

Grey light spilled into the tent as the flap was roughly pushed aside and a man came in, another man behind him.

"So it is true."

"They're saying a crow killed Qhorin Halfhand."

Tormund's eyes continued to bore into Jon for a moment longer, then he looked at the men.

"Aito. Franck. Do you come to protect me from this baby crow?" Tormund snorted.

Jon saw that one of the men carried a battle axe, the other a spear.

"Why is he here?" said the man with the axe. He had a slash of a scar down his face.  

"Mance has placed him under my protection," said Tormund.

"Why?" the man demanded. "Why's the scum still breathing?"

"He is an oathbreaker. No harm comes to him." Tormund walked between the men to the entrance. "See nobody sticks a spear in him before I get back."

And with that he ducked outside, leaving Jon alone with the two men.

There was a beat of silence as the men eyed him.

"You have information, do you, crow?" said the man with the axe. "Is that how you bought your life?"

"I'm not a crow anymore," Jon said quietly.

"Trying to be smart?" The man hefted the axe in his hands.

"Aito," the spearman murmured.

The flap lifted again and the boy came with a bundle of leathers and furs in his arms. He darted an uncertain look at the men, then hurried forward and dropped the bundle at Jon's feet.

"What's all this, Micah?" the axeman, Aito, said.

"Tormund wanted clothes for him."

The man with the spear grunted. "He won't last long in this camp dressed as he is." 

Aito went and sat on the low log-stool beside the fire. He set the head of his axe down with a thump, his hand wrapped loosely round the haft.

"Well, crow?" he said. "Off with your blacks."

Jon looked between the men's hard faces. They stared back at him.

Jon pulled his gloves off and dropped them, then fumbled with numb fingers at the fastening of his cloak. He kept his face blank, while inwardly his mind raced to things he'd heard at the wall - a man outnumbered and raped by other men. There was a story told in the barracks of an unpopular man it had happened to, and they'd killed him after, and no one was ever hung for it.

"What's your name?" Micah, the boy, said. He sat fiddling with his basket again, his head bent.

"You don't need to know his name," Aito growled.

"Jon Snow," Jon said. 

He swung his cloak down, the heavy weight of it coming off him, leaving him smaller, colder. He dropped it to the floor. He was sorry to lose it, it had kept him alive in this frozen place - it and the warmth of the girl. She came into his mind again, unbidden - how he'd slept close against her back, how she'd jibed at him when they'd awoken in the morning, her eyes forever laughing at him. 

"Is it true?" said Micah. "Did you kill Qhorin Halfhand?"

Jon's fingers fumbled with the buckles on his leathers. 

_Qhorin staring into his face, his eyes ghastly, fixed on Jon, Jon's sword driven through him -_

"I did," Jon said quietly, working one buckle open with difficulty. 

"So he claims," said Aito. "He says what he needs to to stay alive."

There was no point in arguing. Jon had managed to convince Mance Rayder - that was all that mattered.

He got his leather tunic open at last and pushed it down and stepped out of it. He hesitated to remove his shirt.

"Be quick about it, crow."

Jon pulled his shirt off over his head and stood shivering.

"Look," said the man with the spear, and in the same moment Aito stood.

Jon realised quickly what they were both staring at - the strap of leather on Jon's right arm, the strap every man of the Night's Watch wore.

"Still yoked are you, boy?" Aito came towards Jon suddenly. "We can help you with that." He pulled a small curved dagger from his belt.

Jon stepped back.

"I thought the strap stopped their scent," said the spearman. "He stinks well enough to me."

"Come here, boy." Aito grabbed Jon's arm in a mean grip and raised the dagger in his other hand. 

"It won't come off that way," Jon said.

"Don't talk shite." The man's fingers bit hard into his arm as Jon tried to pull free. "You're an oathbreaker, aren't you? You should be begging me to cut the thing cut off."

"What are you doing, Aito?"

Tormund's voice surprised them. They had not noticed his return. The cold wind rushed in, flattening the flames in the fire pit. Tormund dropped the animal skin across the entrance.

"Look." Aito pointed his dagger at Jon.

Tormund glanced at the leather strap on Jon's bicep.

"Leave him be."

"But Tormund -"

"Leave him." Tormund went and seated himself on the log by the fire. "Why are you all here? Go. Your mother is looking for you, Micah."

Micah ducked his head and hurried out the tent. 

"Will he stay with the prisoners tonight?" Aito said.

"He could not very well be 'under my protection' if he is kept with the prisoners," Tormund said slowly. "Do you want to argue with me, Aito?"

"No, Alpha," Aito said.

"Then go."

Aito and the spearman quit the tent, and then it was just Jon and Tormund.

The man set his hands on his knees and looked at Jon. Jon forced himself to stand straight, he did not want to look small and shivering and weak. 

"I expect you are hungry, little crow," said Tormund.

"Yes, sir."

"You had better dress yourself quickly then."

Jon looked down at the mess of skins at his feet. The wildling clothing was unfamiliar to him. After a moment's hesitation, he knelt down and searched through the things. He found a sinew cloth and turning it over in his hands decided it was a kind of undershirt. He pulled it on over his head, repressing a shudder at how cold the skin felt. He unrolled some bulky pieces of coarse napped leather and stiff fur, the largest of which was a coat. It was lined with fur inside and he wrestled it on gratefully, fastening the ties. He was still wearing his black breeches and boots.

"That will do for now," Tormund said. He stood and went to the entryway and indicated with a look that Jon was to follow. "Stay close to me."

Jon followed Tormund through the camp.

He resisted the urge to cup his hands to his mouth and breathe hot breath into them, to jam his hands under his armpits to protect them from the frigid wind. He'd been cold enough times since he took the black, been berated enough times and seen other men berated for blowing on their hands or stamping their feet in the presence of an officer. It looked like weakness, and he could not afford to look weak now.

They came to a tent larger than any Jon had seen so far. From inside came the sound of many voices talking, drums beating, and some queer stringed instrument wailing. The smell of meat cooking brought saliva into Jon's mouth.

Tormund led the way inside.

There were many wildlings here, some standing, some sitting in groups eating. A large fire blazed. Meat was being roasted on spits. A group of drummers beat hand drums and an old crone sat sawing at a bowed string instrument. It was blessedly warm with the heat of the fire and of so many bodies packed together. 

"Sit."

Tormund gripped Jon suddenly by the shoulder of his coat and all but knocked him sideways, dropping him on his arse on a mat of woven reeds. Tormund spoke a brief word to a man tending the meats and shortly a wooden plate was put into Jon's hands, heavy with roast meat, a large scoop of brown paste, and what looked like some mashed berries.

"Eat," said Tormund. "Stay here until I return."

Tormund moved off through the crowd and Jon lost sight of him.

The food quickly occupied Jon's attention. The last meal he'd eaten had been days ago, with Qhorin and the rest of the scouting party.

Of that party which had set out from the Fist of the First Men, Jon was the only one now alive.

He pushed the thought away. The best he could do now was carry out Qhorin's orders. Gather as much information about Mance's army as he could.

He wolfed down his food, every now and then casting covert looks around the tent. Maybe he could try and overhear some conversations, get a sense of the mood in the camp -

"I almost didn't fancy I'd see you alive again, Jon Snow."

Jon lifted his head and saw the girl, Ygritte, standing in the tent entrance.

She propped her spear outside and came in, pushing back the hood of her coat. She stopped in front of him.

"Look at you. Stand up so's I can see your new clothes."

Jon pressed his lips together and frowned down at his plate, feeling that familiar rush of hot embarrassment and annoyance that Ygritte so easily provoked in him. 

She squatted down on her haunches, grinning. She took a hunk of meat off his plate.

"Do you mind?" Jon said flatly.

" _Do you mind?_ " she mimicked him, pitching her voice low and thick, the voice of a dullard. "I’m sorry, your lordship." She bit into the goat meat and chewed. "Are you quite comfortable? I don't suppose our fire's half so grand as you're used to. Our food's not as fine as the spread they lay on at Castle Black?"

Jon suppressed a sigh, determined not to let her bait him. He kept a stoic expression as she licked her fingers. 

"You not gonna thank me then?" she said.

"For what?"

"Back there. You wouldn't be sat here stuffing your face if I'd not vouched for you. You wouldn't be breathing." She rose to her feet. "Come on. I want to show you something."

"He said I was to stay here. Tormund." Jon scanned the crowd for any sign of the man.

"Oh aye?" Ygritte raised her eyebrows mockingly. "You do as you're told, do you? Is he your alpha now? Did he give you the bite?"

Jon grimaced. He did not understand how she could speak so blithely of such things. "No."

"That's right, crows aren't allowed to bite, are they?" Ygritte gave Jon a bland, pitying smile.  

The man who had served Jon his dinner came and took his plate and Ygritte said to him,

"Hoed, if Tormund comes looking for this one, tell him he’s with me. We won’t be gone long."

The man nodded.

Ygritte went to the entrance and retrieved her spear. She glanced back at Jon. "You comin or what?"

*

"Where’s my sword?" Jon said as they walked the slush path between the tents.

"Don't worry, I’ll protect you." Ygritte swapped her spear to her other hand as she stepped lightly over a puddle. 

Jon shot her a black look.

"It's somewhere safe," she said. "You might get it back if you behave."

Night was coming on and all through the camp fires were being lit, orange light glowing through the membranous skin of the tents.

"Where are we going?" Jon said, his breath pluming in the dark air.

"You’ll see."

Presently the path brought them into an open circle that was ringed with a low wall of crudely heaped rocks. Several fires were burning here and guards stood about leaning on their spears.

Jon stopped sharply as his eyes landed on two figures. 

They were two men of the Night's Watch, their hands and feet were shackled. They stood close, hunched against the wind, their black cloaks flapping. In the wavering light from the fires, Jon could see their faces were bloodied. They were shackled to stakes driven deep into the frozen earth.

"Crows," Ygritte said in an undertone. "D'you know them?"

Jon said nothing. 

"They've been here a while. They're to be executed," Ygritte said.

Jon breathed slow and even. With an effort, he looked away. "Why are you showing me this?"

"That could have been you over there, Jon Snow." Ygritte stuck her chin out to indicate the sorry figures of the shackled men. "Instead you're a free man. You have food in your belly. You'll have a warm place to sleep tonight." 

Jon stared at her, angry, sick. "Are you showing me this so that I'll thank you?"

Ygritte returned his look, the whites of her eyes glowing in the gloom. "That over there's death," she said quietly, wonderingly, in a strange, solemn tone. "You've got a chance to live now. Really live."

Jon looked at the men again and immediately away. The rich meat he'd just eaten was making him feel like he might vomit.

"I know," he said.

"You don't know though, do you?" Ygritte's attitude turned fiery again abruptly, her look hard.

Jon frowned at her. Did she doubt him?

"I'm a deserter," he said slowly. "I can't go back now, even if I wanted to. The punishment for desertion is death."

"Right." Ygritte nodded. "They'll kill yeh. _They_ are your enemies now." She pointed at the prisoners. "If Mance ordered you to kill one of them, would you do it?"

Jon could not make himself answer immediately. Lying did not come easily to him. He cursed himself as he stood facing Ygritte, both of them breathing a little fast, their breaths pluming from their mouths.

He lowered his eyes. 

"I've already killed one brother," he said in a low voice. "If Mance ordered it..." 

"Aye. You did do that." 

Jon looked at her again. Her expression had softened. The wind gusted over them, it stirred her hair. There was some emotion in her face as she watched him which he could not name. 

The strange moment passed, and presently Ygritte looked away, saying,

"Better get you back."

Jon looked a final time over his shoulder at the two prisoners. One man was squatting now, his cloak bundled close about him. When would they be executed? Tonight? Tomorrow? 

"Come, Jon Snow," Ygritte said.

Now that full night was come, the camp seemed a different place altogether, and Jon would not have been able to find his way back through the maze of tents.

Light and noise were spilling from the largest tent when they finally reached it.

"I'll look for you tomorrow," Ygritte said. "That's if no one's slit your throat in the night."

Jon nodded. He was thinking of the brothers. They would freeze to death if they were left chained outside - 

All at once someone grabbed Jon's shoulder and hauled him round and a hand fisted the neck of his coat choking-tight.

"Boy," Tormund murmured, putting his face nose-to-nose with Jon. "When I tell you to stay, you stay." His tightened his grip. "I do not know what piss-soaked old men you have for alphas at the Wall, but if you are to live with us, you learn an alpha is to be obeyed."

"It was me took him off!" Ygritte was trying to wedge herself in-between them. "We were only gone a moment."

Tormund released Jon and pushed Ygritte away, his hand closed on her spear, his foot hooked behind hers, so when she fell on her arse she fell without her spear in her hand. 

"Go on." Tormund held Ygritte's spear loose in his hand. "Go back to your pack."

Ygritte scrambled to her feet, looking like a wiry spitting cat. She snatched her spear back from Tormund, but made no other move. Tormund turned away.

"Come, boy," he said in a ringing voice.

Jon threw a quick look back at Ygritte, then hastened to catch up to Tormund's long stride.

"A little early to be picking out a wife just yet," Tormund laughed. He had a loud, full-throated laugh. 

They were lost again in the rabbit warren of the camp.

Tormund stopped to piss. Jon stood with his back to the man. The loud sound of the man's piss hitting the snow made Jon realise his own bladder was aching. He deliberated with himself. There were people walking past them, a woman went by pulling a sledge heaped with firewood.

Tormund sighed and shook off and tucked his cock away. Taking the decision quickly, Jon turned and moved his bulky coat aside and took himself out.

"They did not cut off your prick, then," Tormund said as Jon began to piss. "That's good!" He gave a bark of laughter and slapped Jon hard on the back so that Jon stumbled forward a step, the stream of his piss jostled, spilling a wild shape into the snow.

When they returned to Tormund's tent, it was full of people, the dark figures of men and women and children laying out furs on the floor. In the dimness Jon could not make out their faces well, but they had all turned to stare at him. No one spoke.

Tormund gripped the back of Jon's coat and steered him to an unoccupied area of the floor. Jon had to step carefully over the legs of a woman to get to it.

Tormund unceremoniously knocked him down, the thick pelts cushioning Jon's fall. Jon winced faintly and stared up at the animal skin roof of the tent.

Tormund stood working open his clothes.

Murmured conversation started up. A child whinged. 

The logs in the fire shifted, sending up a flurry of sparks.

Jon closed his eyes for a moment. The exhaustion of days out on the ice and rock planes suddenly hit him. 

Those prisoners out in the cold. Jon could see them clearly, imprinted on his mind's eye. They were out there right now, the wind flapping through their black cloaks.

_Night gathers, and now my watch begins._

If Mance ordered Jon to kill one of them... there'd be no way out of it.

Jon thought of the Lord Commander. He thought of Longclaw. Perhaps Ygritte have given it to her alpha. And if that alpha decided to keep it...

Jon thought of Qhorin Halfhand. His charred remains up on the mountainside. The snow would cover his bones. It seemed impossible that Qhorin had been alive that morning, spoken to Jon that morning.

_It shall not end until my death._

Jon jerked half-upright as a heavy body settled beside him. For a moment he had no idea where he was.

"Easy, boy," Tormund grunted.

The tent was darker, quieter. Jon could hear the breathing of those sleeping around him.

"Sleep," Tormund murmured.

Jon lay back, his heart still thumping. He swallowed thickly. He closed his eyes.

 _I shall live and die at my post,_ his exhausted mind supplied. _I am...the sword in the darkness. I am..._

After that, he remembered no more.

*


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so blown away by the response to the first chapter, thank you so much.
> 
> NB: this story goes canon divergent here as far as what happened to Mormont at the Fist of the First Men. I think the events of canon still happen down the line, but I'm probably not going to cover them in this fic. I needed to defer Mormont and his men getting wiped out because I didn't want that to trigger Mance's march on the Wall yet.

_"Is it true crows all have a black strap that stops them from being able to lie down with girls?"_

_"No," Jon said shortly. His eyes scanned the rocky land up ahead that gave way to ice. It seemed wise to find a way around the glacier, but the rock either side was steep and jagged._

_"But you do have one, don't you?" the girl persisted. "I heard it gets put on you with magic."_

_Jon kept walking._

_"What's it do, then," Ygritte said, "if it's not to stop you sleeping with girls?"_

_Jon squinted against the icy wind. The girl would not stop talking until he gave her an answer._

_"It makes it so we can't form a pack bond," he said._

_The rope went taut in his hands. Ygritte had stopped walking behind him. Jon turned. Her face was screwed up in incomprehension as she stared at him, wisps of her red hair flying around her face out from the edges of her hood._

_"What?" she said. "No pack at all? Not even with your own family? What about your mother, your father?"_

_"We give that up," Jon said. He thought of Uncle Benjen and he tried to speak how his uncle spoke, laconic, solemn. "A man of the Night's Watch has no pack."_

_The wildling girl absorbed his words and Jon thought that might be the end of it._

_"But that's...just _stupid_ ," she said. She shook her head and gestured with her bound hands to his sword. "What reason d'you have to fight if you don't even have a pack? What reason d'you have to live?"_

_"We sacrifice in order to protect the people of the Seven Kingdoms."_

_"And these people, do they get to have a family and a pack? And you crows don't?" Ygritte's mouth twisted derisively. "I'd die before I let someone put a strap on me that stopped me having a pack - "_

_"I wouldn't expect you to understand," Jon said._

_"What, because you think I'm too thick to get it?"_

_Jon tugged on the rope. "Move."_

_They stopped later to drink snow melted in their hands. Ygritte kept stealing looks at him._

_"What?" Jon said irritably, wiping his mouth._

_"Am I not allowed to look at you?" She dried her hands off on her coat as best she could with her wrists bound together. "Only kneelers would submit to having their pack taken away."_

_"My pack wasn't taken away."_

_"Explains why you crows all go around dead inside - "_

_"We're not dead inside." Jon gathered up the rope between them. "Let's go."_

_"Did it hurt when they put it on you?" Ygritte said as they walked. "The black strap?"_

_Jon didn't answer. There was powerful spellwork woven into the black strap. Sam had vomited when they'd put his on, after the two of them had said their vows together kneeling in the snow before the weirwood tree. When it had come Jon's turn, he'd tried not to show any pain in his face as Maester Aemon spoke the words of the spell and the black leather strap bit suddenly into Jon's bicep like it was a living creature with a mouth that was suddenly biting him._

_"Can't lie with a girl," Ygritte said idly, mockingly. "Can't lie with a boy. Can't have any pack." She was walking ahead of him and she did not look back at him as she spoke._

_Jon grit his teeth._

_"All you do is guard your wall and kill Free Folk - "_

_"Be quiet." Jon looked up at the sky. The light was already failing. He had to start looking for somewhere they could sleep. How long could they go without food, without a fire?_

_"Do you not want a pack?" Ygritte said._

_Jon exhaled a breath through his nose. "The strap stops us from wanting," he said. "We swore an oath - "_

_"Stops you from wanting?" Ygritte repeated incredulously. "Wanting a pack is the most natural thing in the world."_

_Jon ignored her, scanning the rock face for a cave they might shelter in._

_"You let them put a strap on you," Ygritte said slowly, "use some filthy magic on you to stop you from wanting what's natural? And they've got you that much by the balls, you don't even see how wrong it is - "_

_Jon yanked on the rope, turning her round sharply._

_"That's enough."_

_Her eyes blazed, mocking, unafraid. "You're telling me if you saw your own mother, you couldn't even greet her as pack? Because some king says so? And that's fine by you, is it?"_

_It felt as if she'd struck him. He looked aside._

_"I said that's enough."_

_The wind buffeted them, spilling his hair across his face._

_"It'll be dark soon," he said._

*

In the morning, Tormund took Jon to Mance Rayder's tent.

"Three hundred men, you say." Mance had been placing wood on the fire. He straightened to his full ponderous height, dusting his hands off on the seat of his breeches.

"Yes, sir," Jon said.

"Quite a gamble." Mance sniffed. "Mormont flies down from his roost with such a force, when his numbers are already dwindling." He looked at Jon. "How many black brothers are there these days, boy?" 

Jon wanted to shift in his seat and give himself time to think, but with everyone's eyes on him he needed to answer. 

"A thousand," he said, truthfully.

Mance's eyes flickered to the wildling chieftains who were seated in his tent - six men who Jon took to be Mance's generals.

Mance clasped his hands behind his back and asked Jon,

"Which castles are manned? What are their numbers?"

Mance Rayder had been a man of the Night's Watch. It seemed likely he already knew the answers to these questions. If he caught Jon in a lie, Jon might not live to see the end of the day.

"Three hundred at the Shadow Tower," Jon said. "The same at Eastwatch. Four hundred at Castle Black." He held Mance's gaze. "Or there were."

Mance gave a small nod, tucked his chin down and looked contemplatively at the ground.

Jon watched him, as did the other men. Jon did not recognise any of the chieftains, other than Tormund. Another man stood just inside the tent entrance. He was rawboned and shabby and he stood quite still. His presence was so unprepossessing, it was easy to forget he was there.

"You say Mormont's camped at the Fist of the First Men?" Mance said.

Jon felt the eyes of the men on him again.

"Yes, sir."

"Why? Why did he abandon the Wall?" Mance said.

"He knows you're gathering an army."

"They got one thing right," one of the chieftains laughed.

"Three hundred men?" said another, leaning forward, his hand wrapped around the shaft of a war hammer. "They'd see us coming, but with our numbers. But we could take the Fist. It's been done before."

Mance sat down at an oak slab table and rubbed his chin.

Jon was somewhat amazed at the man's calm. News of a host of three hundred men, camped not very far away, and the King-Beyond-the-Wall did not look concerned. There were no orders being given, no urgent rush of activity, no immediate move to ready a force that could meet the Lord Commander in battle. 

Mance looked towards the tent entrance where the rawboned man with the sunken cheeks stood. "Well, Orell?"

"They were at the Fist." The man flickered a flinty look at Jon. "There was a blizzard. They cleared out. Wasn't just the blizzard - looked like something scared them. They left in a hurry. I saw them heading into the forest. They were falling back to the Wall."

"Any sign of...Them?" Manse said.

The thin man shook his head. "None that I saw."

Mance grunted. He rapped his knuckles on the table.

"What did you see, Mormont?" he murmured. "Why do you retreat?" He looked again at the thin man. "Watch them. I want to know if they change course, if they separate or dispatch any ranging parties."

The thin man inclined his head and slipped out the tent.

Jon frowned. It made no sense. How could the scout cover such a distance in time, supposing he even had a horse? Supposing he had a ship and meant to sail it down the Milkwater? There was still no way he'd be able to catch up to the Lord Commander before he reached the Wall.

"The coward runs back to his Wall," one of the chieftains growled.

"Jeor Mormont is many things, Zolta," Mance said pleasantly, "But a coward..." He shook his head. "No, I think he has received a nasty shock."

After that, Mance dismissed his men - all except Tormund. Jon kept his eyes down as the chieftains filed past him. He felt their looks, which ranged from neutral to distinctly unfriendly.

"Now then, boy," Mance said. "Tormund tells me you still have your strap." 

Jon felt a twinge of dread.

"Yes, sir."

"That's a kind of poison you live with," said Mance. "You don't know it, but it is. It's harmful magic that keeps a man from being able to form a pack connection. It's a kind of disfigurement of the spirit. A mutilation."

Jon did not know what to say. Only moments ago it seemed he had been at a war council. Now abruptly they spoke of the "black strap", as it was called by brothers of the Night's Watch.

"And they call the Free Folk barbaric." Mance laughed humourlessly. He patted his arm through his bulky furs and raised his eyebrows meaningfully at Jon, the light from the fire cutting deep shadows along the creases of his face.

Jon felt the urge to clap his hand over this own arm, where his strap was, to protect it.

"Do you want it cut off you?" Mance said.

Jon wondered if he should answer eagerly, lie and pretend he wanted the strap cut off him. 

"I've grown used to it, sir," he said.

"Aye, a man can grow used to anything," Mance said. His look was not unkind as he regarded Jon, his dark eyes steady on him. "You still think of yourself as a man of the Night's Watch."

Jon experienced a low jolt of horror. "No, sir."

Did Mance know him for a spy? Had he merely been toying with Jon this whole time?

"Don't panic, boy," said Mance. "They were your pack, in so far as you were permitted to have a pack. Better than nothing, eh? You don't know what a pack really is. You're a bastard." Mance sat forward. His chair creaked quietly. His dark eyes peered into Jon and to Jon it felt as if it was a king who peered at him, a king even if he wore rough sewn skins. 

"They never did let you in, did they?" Mance said quietly. "Your father's family. Such are the customs south of the Wall." Mance glanced at Tormund.

"You'll find no _bastards_ here, boy," Tormund said to Jon. He hunched forward in his seat, his large booted feet kicking the furs, and spread his hands, grinning. "Unless we are all bastards!"

Mance drank from a horn cup, his eyes warm as he regarded Tormund, and Jon read obvious fondness in his look.

Mance wiped his mouth, looked again at Jon.

"Did you take the black because you were looking for something?" he said. "The feeling of what it was to be a part of a pack?"

"Begging your pardon, sir," Jon said. "A man of the Night's Watch has no pack."

"No pack?" Tormund echoed. "A man without a pack is no man at all."

"That strap they put on you," Mance said. He stood and went to the fire. "It's a method of control, nothing more. A way to stop you from feeling. They only want you alive enough, feeling enough, so that you'll follow orders, do you duty. And when a 'brother' meets his end, he is truly alone. There is no human comfort for him at the end. He stands his watch alone, goes to his death alone. He is reduced to serving his _purpose_. That is what it really means to take the black." 

Mance had been staring into the fire as he spoke, but now he lifted his somber eyes to fix on Jon, and his look was dangerous. "Do you think I don't know of what I speak? I wore the black more years than you've been alive."

"Yes, sir." Jon lowered his eyes humbly.

Mance turned away, almost careless then. It seemed he thought of something else, his mind moved on to another matter. 

"We have no shaman who can do this magic," Mance said. "And I assume you'd rather not risk _losing_ the arm? Yes? Well then, you will have to wait a little longer. More tribes are journeying to join us. A shaman will be among them, I have no doubt. Until then, you will have to abide it." He raised his eyebrows. "Strap or no strap, you are a free man. You are free to bed a woman. Free to _win glory_. Free to join a pack, if you can win the favour of a chieftain."

Jon stared into the fire. He feared his expression might give away his thoughts.

"Until an alpha claims you, you'll be a lone wolf, packless," Mance went on. "That places you in a vulnerable position. The society of the Free Folk is different to what you are used to. Scent and pack will keep you alive here. I cannot guarantee your safety if you walk about smelling like a stranger." 

Mance gestured to Tormund with his cup.

"Tormund will scent mark you so that others will know you are under his protection, even if you are not his pack."

Jon stared at Tormund in surprise. It was true he knew nothing of the pack customs of wildlings, but south of the wall, an alpha scent marking an outsider was not a trivial act.

Were Tormund an alpha in his father's court, Jon would have bowed to him, or knelt to him.

Jon got to his feet and then did not know what to do. Tormund arched an eyebrow and stood slowly as well.

"He's been taught he should kneel to you," Mance said to Tormund, his mouth quirking in a wry smile as he raised his cup again to drink.

"He's done that already," Tormund said. He looked Jon up and down. "Relax, little crow. You'll not be punished because you did not kneel."

"Then...how am I to thank you?" Jon said stiffly.

"Stay out of trouble," Tormund said. "Make yourself useful."

*

In the main communal tent, Jon was given a breakfast of roasted fish with a soup of tubers and green stems, then he was introduced to Tormund's second-in-command, a slight, silver-haired man named Larrs.

"Do as Larrs bids you," Tormund said, clapping his hand on Larrs' shoulder.

There were fishing nets in the river that needed hauling up, there was snow to be melted for water, firewood that needed to be loaded up and dragged to different tents in the vast camp.

Two dead reindeer strung up needed skinning. Jon worked with a couple of older women. He was clumsy with the skinning knife made of bone, while the women worked with them as deftly as Jon had seen men use steel.

After washing the blood off his hands in the river, he accompanied Larrs up the bank to a line of trees and Larrs instructed him to forage for chaga mushrooms, birds eggs, roots and stems hidden by voles underneath the snow in their burrows. He asked Jon to name various animal tracks. Jon had little luck with it - he'd have known more had he been assigned to the rangers for training these last five months instead of stewarding for the Lord Commander.

They returned to the camp and Larrs set him to cleaning and sharpening axes. This allowed Jon to sit by a fire and get some heat back into his limbs. 

He'd been shown how to use a water stone to hone the edge of an axe by the armorer at Castle Black. He lost himself in the work, patiently cleaning each axehead and honing the blade. Larrs picked up one of the finished ones and tested the edge and nodded. 

After that, there was more firewood to gather. 

Jon was carrying sticks into the camp when a stone struck him on the back of the head.

A gang of boys raced past roaring with laughter.

"Here, crow! Here, crow!" 

One of the boys was carrying a spear that was twice as tall as he was and he struck Jon's hand with the butt of it. Jon dropped his bundle of firewood.

"Don't yeh have a sword, crow?" the boy said. "I'll run yeh through and yeh'll be a dead crow!"

His friends yelled excitedly.

Jon bent to gather up the wood and the boy feinted forward, jabbing the spear tip at Jon's face. Jon batted the spear away reflexively with the stick he had in his hand, shifting easily onto the front foot as the boy charged at him again. He guided the spear aside with his stick, stepped into the boy's body and knocked into his shoulder. The boy tumbled to the ground, his friends hooting and shouting.

"I'll have you!" the boy shouted, scrambling to his feet, struggling in his bulky furs and with the spear that was too large and heavy for him. He looked only a little older than Bran.

"Where'd you get that?" Jon said.

"None of yer filthy business!" The wildling boy pointed the spear at Jon and charged him again while the other boys shrieked and darted around. At this rate the boy was going to accidentally skewer one of his friends.

Ser Rodrik had drilled Jon and Robb on defending against a spear, but it didn't require anything special to disarm the boy. Jon parried the spear tip, hooked his stick underneath the shaft and drove it upwards, breaking the boy's grip and tripping him, sending him tumbling again.

The other children roared.

"You don't know how to strike a sword," Jon said.

The boy swore at him and Jon fought off a smile as the boy wobbled on his knees trying to stand the spear up straight.

"You're going to put someone's eye out," Jon said, his stick held loosely at his side.

"Shut up!" The boy used the spear to pull himself upright and took a hesitant step forward, adopting an artless attack stance, the large spear unwieldy in his hands.

The other children jeered.

"What's this?" Jon held up his stick, mirroring the boy's clumsy grip on his spear. "Spread your hands out. Don't hold the middle, hold the back."

"Piss off, crow," the boy barked, but his eyes darted from Jon's hands to his own and he quickly adjusted his grip.

"Tuck your thumbs," Jon said.

The boy did it.

Jon nodded and changed his grip on his stick to a sword grip and stood ready, for a moment transported back to the yard, training with a new recruit.

"Use the length of it," Jon said. "Don't just run at me. Thrust."

The boy ignored the instruction and charged again with a yell.

"No." Jon twisted, let the spear tip plunge harmlessly past him, then stepped close and caught the shaft in his hand. "Back, back," he said, pushing the spear vertically and walking the boy backwards. "You don't run at me with it, you thrust. Like this." He guided the spear down and the boy kept a fierce hold of it, but he let Jon move the spear back and forth. "Step into it when you thrust."

Jon stepped back and held his stick ready. "Go on."

The boy screwed his face up, looked down at his hands checking his grip, then he lunged a step forward and thrust the spear at Jon's chest.

The iron tip left a deep gouge in Jon's stick as he knocked it aside. "Good."

"What d'you think you're doing, crow?" a voice said.

Jon turned and saw a burly youth leaning on a spear. Glancing around, Jon realised there were several adults who had been watching him spar with the child.

"I'm going to kill him!" the boy piped up, jabbing his spear at Jon in a feinting motion.

The youth's eyes remained fixed on Jon. He shifted his spear to his right hand and came forward, shoving the child out of the way.

"A crow killed that one's father," he said. "D'you make sport of him?"

"No," Jon said.

"Shut up, Hare!" the child cried, and ran away after his friends.

"I've put this spear through more than one of your kind," the youth said.

Jon held the youth's gaze. He looked a couple of years older than Jon, a big lad, about as big as Grenn.

"That's enough of that." Larrs appeared as if out of nowhere and stepped between Jon and the youth. "Pick up that firewood," he said to Jon.

Jon stepped slowly back and gathered up the wood.

"You making yourself useful doing pack mothers' work, crow?" the youth said. "You ought to be having your fingers broken, in the cage with the other two - "

"Enough," Larrs said sharply, and the youth fell silent.

Jon straightened up with the firewood in his arms and looked at the youth again.

"Come." Larrs led Jon away. 

The sky was darkening by the time they got back to the tent of Tormund's pack. Jon had only been a day in the wildling camp, yet he was fast learning the network of paths that led to this tent.


	3. Chapter 3

Tormund was seated by the fire.

"How did the little crow fare?" he said as he saw them.

Jon looked from Tormund to Larrs and suddenly had the same feeling he'd had at Castle Black when he'd been under the eye of officers who were reviewing his training.

"He has skill with a sword," Larrs said. "He'll be no use tracking or foraging."

Tormund peered up at Jon. "What was the Halfhand teaching you?"

"He wasn't my teacher," Jon said. His pride felt a little dented by Larrs' assessment of his abilities, but that was foolishness. He was here to spy on these people - what mattered most was that he avoided being sent away to some hut to peel potatoes all day. He needed to be close to Mance Rayder.

"I can wield a sword," Jon said, "ride a horse, shoot a bow-and-arrow."

"Not many horses around here," Larrs said.

"I need fighting men," Tormund said. "Can you swing a sword, boy, truly? And I don't mean that poncey twirling your southern lords like."

Jon felt a hot flush creep up his neck as he thought of Ser Rodrik. No doubt the wildlings thought nothing of knights, or lords like his father. Jon strove to make his voice mild as he responded,

"I hope you may judge for yourself."

Tormund stared at him for a moment, then threw his head back laughing. He sighed, still smiling, and pointed at Jon.

"That's good." He pushed to his feet. "Let's go. It's time I put my scent on you."

There was nothing else to do but follow the man.

Tormund took him outside, and away from the pack tent, to a small tent with what looked like the rib bones of some enormous creature crossed at its entrance. Tormund held aside the flap of deerhide that was the doorway.

Inside, there was room enough for the two of them to stand, though Tormund had to bend his head. He dropped the flap and it was dim and cold, only ashes in the little firepit. There was a sleeping pallet on the floor, a small table, a couple of logs for chairs and a cooking pot and some utensils.

"Won't take long." Tormund worked his furs open and knelt down on the pallet. "Come."

Jon stood frozen in place, his awareness sharp like he was about to be attacked.

Tormund shrugged his coat off and knelt there bare-chested. He glanced back at Jon.

"In the south," he said, "would you need to be my pack in order for me to mark you?"

Jon shook his head. "No, sir."

"You do not need to call me 'sir'. Do I look like a lord?" Tormund tossed his coat aside. His beard and hair were wild, his face was fierce and hawkish. There was hair on his thick torso. Even without seeing the scars on his arms and back, Jon had already surmised from watching him move that he was a warrior. 

"No doubt our ways are different from yours." Tormund shrugged his shoulders and lay down on his side on the pallet with a sigh. "I put my scent on you to protect you. Let other people know you are not a threat. Like Mance told you. And if you cause any trouble, it comes back to me. Understand?"

Jon nodded.

"Good." Tormund gestured for Jon to join him.

Jon's heart had started thumping loud in his ears.

In all his life, only two adult alphas had ever wanted to scent-mark him: his father, and Uncle Benjen.

The last time he'd scent-marked with his father seemed a long, long time ago, another life. It was too painful to think about right then.

Uncle Benjen had marked him that night of the feast at Winterfell. Things changed after they arrived at Castle Black. Benjen had not once come to Jon to mark him. Perhaps now he never would again.

"Come, boy," Tormund said.

It was an insult to refuse an alpha.

Jon went slowly and knelt on the bedding.

"Take off your coat."

Jon shrugged the coat off. He wore the thin shift underneath.

He knew he ought to lay down as well, but again he hesitated.

"What's the matter, little crow?" Tormund said, amusement in his voice. "You don't want the scent of a _wild man_ on you?"

Jon lay down slowly, stiffly, his back to the man. Tormund threw his arm over him and shifted close so his warm, furred chest was pressed against Jon's back.

It had been some time since Jon had scent marked with an alpha. At Castle Black, it had only been with other lads - cold nights packed together with Grenn and Pyp, and later on, Sam, in a crush all together for warmth, the camaraderie of it.

They were the first real friends he'd ever known.

Jon thought of Sam's kindly face. He and the others would be on their way back to the Wall now, if Mance Rayder's scout was to be believed.

What had Sam thought when Qhorin's party had failed to return? When Lord Commander Mormont had given the order to return to the Wall? Did Sam think Jon was dead? Or did he hold out hope that he was still alive somewhere out in the wilderness?

Behind him, Tormund grunted. "Relax, boy. You're like a block of ice."

Jon came back to what was happening. He was holding himself rigid while Tormund's chest was pressed to his back. The alpha scent was pouring off the man, and Jon ought to have been giving his scent in response but he couldn't. He was locked up. He couldn't relax.

He had begun to shiver, even with the man's warm body pressed against him.

He stared ahead at the empty firepit, the mound of cold white ash.

He was back at Castle Black, he told himself. He was bundled up on a cot with the other lads, scent marking with them.

It had been Grenn the first time - pushing Jon playfully into the wall, pinning him there with his big shoulder and scrubbing his bristly cheek carelessly against Jon's cheek before moving easily away, still trading jibes with Pyp as they stripped off their leathers and sweaty woollens. Jon had leant against the wall for a moment, surprised, before he'd resumed unbuckling his scabbard, turning from them so that they wouldn't see how much the simple friendly wolf gesture had pleased him.

Before he'd made friends with Grenn and Pyp, his first weeks at the Wall had been some of the most miserable of his life. The Night's Watch was not the great and noble order he'd believed it was. As far as he could tell, his fellow recruits were murderers, thieves, rapers. Not his father, nor his uncle, had told him the truth. Castle Black was a grim place, falling apart with disrepair. The Watch was a shadow of what it had been.

He made no effort to make friends. The lads he sparred with in the training yard had no skill. He earned the fear and dislike almost immediately, and he did not seek out their society.

It was only once he'd set aside his pride and offered to help them with their swordplay that they'd begun to relax around him.

At Winterfell, he'd had only Robb for a playmate, and there was always the risk that Lady Catelyn might smell Jon’s scent too strong on her son and forbid Robb from scent-marking with Jon for weeks at a time.

Jon had memories from his childhood of biting his own arm out of sheer frustration because Lady Catelyn was keeping Robb away from him. It took is father finally intervening before he was allowed to tumble with Robb again, to scent mark with him again.

At Castle Black there was no one to tell Jon that he was not allowed to mark with the other lads. There was no one to care that he slept wedged between a farm lad and a singer from an actors' troupe.

At the Wall, they took comfort in each other, having nothing and nobody else in the world.

 _"What are you doing?"_ Sam had said, his eyes round and owlish the first time Jon leaned against him one night when they had watch together up on the Wall. They’d just got done laughing over something stupid and Jon’s smile faded as he glanced at Sam.

 _"Do you not want to?"_ He moved carefully away from the other boy.

 _"No, no - "_ Sam said in a desperate rush, realisation dawning on his face, his cheeks flushing red in the flickering fire light. _"I do! I just didn’t - I’ve never...had a friend before. Exactly. You can - do it. If you...still want to..."_

Jon put his scent on him and Sam’s friendly smell answered and they'd grinned shyly at one another.

"Is this how it is with you kneelers?" Tormund muttered, shifting behind Jon. "Do they not teach you?" 

Jon tucked his chin down, ashamed. He was still locked up.

Then Tormund sighed out a low, "Ah," as if he suddenly understood something, and he lifted his arm slowly off of Jon. "It's that you don't like an alpha marking you, is that it?"

Jon wanted to deny it. Not so long ago he'd been able to enjoy it with an alpha. Alliser Thorne had changed that.

"It's alright, boy," Tormund said. "You have enough of my scent on you." He nudged Jon's shoulder and Jon sat up quickly, his face turned aside.

They both stood and dressed. Jon could smell the man's scent on him. He felt prickly all over, smelling like a strange alpha he did not know.

"We will have to do this again tomorrow," Tormund said.

*

Outside the snow was coming down thickly. Tormund walked and Jon followed him.

“There is a family who has need of your young back,” Tormund said over his shoulder. “They’re old people, of my pack. You’ll live with them.”

At first Jon did not understand.

“I won’t stay with you, sir?”

Tormund gave a bark of laughter. “I have duties to attend to. A whole pack to take care of. I can’t watch a baby crow all day.”

“I didn’t mean - ” Jon broke off, unable to frame his defence, and not liking to be called _baby crow_. 

Of course he hadn’t expected to remain by the alpha’s side, but he’d thought he would be spending his nights in the communal tent of Tormund’s pack. 

He didn’t know what was normal in a wildling pack. Given that he was a deserter, it could be they did not trust him to stay with the rest of the pack. Perhaps the first night had been an exception.

“You’ll help old Arild and Tala,” Tormund went on. “Any work they need you to do, you do it.”

Jon absorbed this in silence. 

Larrs had evaluated him and found him fit only for this work? ( _Pack mother’s work,_ he thought, recalling the words of the youth he’d encountered earlier)

Neither Tormund nor Larrs had seen the extent of Jon’s skill with a sword. If he could prove his worth, he might be billeted with the other warriors. There, he stood a better chance of gathering information to take back to the Lord Commander.

But what could he say? To ask for different work in Tormund’s pack might seem ungrateful. The alpha may well take it as an insult.

Jon shot a sidelong look at the man. The wind buffeted Tormund’s red beard and hair. His brows were drawn together, frowning and fierce, his gaze directed ahead.

It seemed impossible to Jon just then to ask to prove himself as a warrior - especially after the humiliating way he’d behaved during the scent marking. He would have to wait for the right opportunity.

As they made their way through the camp, wildlings kept approaching Tormund to speak with him. 

Some of them made quick hand motions to the alpha that Jon knew for deference gestures. They were similar to, but not exactly like, the ones used by Northmen. 

Finally they came to the outskirts of the camp. Jon could make out the woods nearby, a black tangle of trees against the evening sky. There was a tiny flicker of a fire somewhere in the dark trees - probably a guard post.

There was a single tent near the forest’s edge. They followed a path of tramped-down snow to the entryway.

“Arild!” Tormund called. “Come out, old wolf.”

There was an answering call from within. 

The deerhide flap was folded aside and a white-haired man came limping out. 

“This is him?” The old man looked Jon up and down. “He’s a pup.”

“He will do the work.” Tormund looked at Jon as well. “His name is Jon Snow.” 

The old man grunted.

“Have you eaten, my alpha?” he said to Tormund. 

“I dine with Mance tonight.” Tormund gripped the old man’s arm in farewell, then he laid a hand on Jon’s shoulder and spoke quietly to him.

“You show these people respect, little crow. Do as they bid you.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

Jon and the old man watched as Tormund trudged away back towards the main camp. A gust of wind buffeted them and a sort of wind chime dangling from a post nearby clinked and clattered.

“Don’t think I won’t be keeping a close eye on you, boy,” the old man said.

“Yes, sir.”

“And don’t think as because I’m old and lame I can’t still handle a spear.” The old man limped forward a step. He carried himself with a rangy strength even with his lameness.

“You come into my home, you just mind yourself. You try anything, endanger my family, it will be the last thing that you do.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Come. Let’s get out the cold.”

Inside the tent there was a fire blazing. Deer skins and woven reed mats covered the floor, there was a low wooden table, sleep furs heaped in one corner, an area at the back partitioned off by an animal hide stretched between poles. 

An old woman was stirring something in a pot near the firepit. She stood up as Jon and the old man came in.

“My mate, Tala,” the old man said.

Unsure of what else to do, Jon inclined his head.

“She is of the Atuan. She does not have much Common Tongue.” The old man looked at Jon. “You know the Atuan? The herders in the north?” 

The old man frowned as he saw Jon didn’t know what he was talking about. 

He turned and spoke a string of strange words to the old woman, and she answered him in the same tongue.

“She will bring you food,” the old man said. “Take off your boots and coat, you’ll get the mats wet.”

He said something else in the other tongue, then he left the tent.

Jon found a squat stool near the entrance and sat and took off his boots. He had to unwind the bindings that kept the sheep fleece wrapped over his leather boots. Following the instruction of more experienced men who had ranged beyond the Wall many times, he and the other lads had wrapped their boots before setting out from Castle Black with the Lord Commander’s expedition party. 

The fleece was foul now, crusted with snow, matted with filth from the long journey. Jon laid the strips of fleece and the leather wraps on top of his boots before standing.

He took off his coat reluctantly and set it down as well.

The woman nodded and gestured towards the table, saying something in her language.

He sat down.   
She brought him two wooden bowls, their contents steaming hot. In one was a root and tuber mash with chopped up boiled egg, in the other was a meat stew. 

“Thank you,” Jon said, speaking carefully, not certain if she understood him.

She handed him a spoon and nodded her head, motioning for him to eat. When she saw him take a mouthful, she returned to the fire where she was grinding something in a bowl.

Not long after, there came a squawk from the pile of furs in the corner. A child of four or five squirmed out from between the furs and ran to the old woman and hid behind her.

The woman stood with a noise of exertion, lifting the child onto her hip.

“Faye,” she sighed, patting the child’s back. 

The child hid its face in the old woman’s shoulder.

The old woman spoke some words to the child and then let her down.

Jon finished the mash and eggs quickly and started on his stew. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast and his appetite made the food taste especially good. 

The child went and crouched behind a sled that was propped near the tent entrance. 

The old woman came to take the bowls when Jon had finished. She gave him a horn cup full of milk.

The child crawled out from behind the sled. She was now holding a doll under her arm. The doll was quite detailed, sewn from pieces of dried animal skin. It wore a grey coat that approximated the skins that wildlings wore, and its hair was dark, possibly goat hair.

The girl hopped and bobbed and then came up to the table where she stood holding the doll against her stomach.

“Is that your doll?” Jon said after a moment, only a little awkwardly. The way the girl had hopped around had reminded him of a younger Arya. He’d never had trouble talking to Arya. “What’s her name?”

The girl didn’t answer at first, and Jon realised perhaps she only spoke the strange language like the old woman. 

But then she set her doll on the table and said,

“Meri.”

“Oh.” 

Jon drank his milk.

The child watched him.

“Who are you?” she said.

“I’m Jon.” 

The old woman came and Jon set his cup down quickly and glanced at her, expecting anger, expecting her to pick the child up, to make it clear that Jon was not to speak to her. 

But the old woman only placed a cup of milk in front of the child and said, in Common Tongue, 

“Sit, Faye.”

The child sat down and carefully picked up the cup. 

“Jon?” the old woman said as she sat down.

It was a slight shock to hear his name spoken by the old woman. 

“Yes, ma’am?” he said.

The old woman only smiled and gestured to herself. 

“Tala.” She touched the child’s head. “Faye.” She indicated the doll. “Meri.”

The child lifted her chin, her lips pressed shut, milk oozing along the seam of her lips. Her eyes crinkled with laughter.

“Ah-ah,” Tala said.

Faye swallowed the milk.

The tent flap opened and the old man returned.

“Come, boy,” he called. “You help with these reindeer.”

Jon dressed himself again. The old man stood waiting. Jon left the coverings off his boots. 

They went out into the bitter cold.

The snow creaked under their feet as they walked in silence.

The old man carried a torch in one hand, a woven basket in the other.

“There,” he said, pointing up ahead. “Shake this and lead them to the pen.”

He handed Jon the basket. 

Dimly, beyond the light of the torch, Jon could see shapes moving around in the darkness. 

“Go on, shake it.”

Jon shook the basket. It rattled with dry seeds.  

Animal eyes appeared glowing in the torch light. The reindeer came slowly forward - there looked to be ten or twelve of them.

The old man limped ahead of Jon, holding up the torch. 

They came to a wattle fence. Jon went in at the old man’s prompting. He shook the basket and the reindeer followed.

“This will be one of your duties, boy. You mark the way. You’ll help me with them in the morning as well.”

When the reindeer had followed Jon in, he tipped the contents of the basket out as the man told him to, then they shut the animals up in the pen and walked back to the tent. 

There was a large woven basket full of water near the firepit, the basket so tightly-woven as to be watertight. 

The old woman spoke to Jon, gesturing to the basket. 

She knelt down with a scoop and lifted a hot stone carefully from the firepit and lowered it hissing into the water.

“You’ll wash after I do,” the old man said irritably to Jon. 

The low table had been stood up on its side to make room and in the cleared space, large reindeer pelts had been laid out, along with sleeping furs. There was a separate set of furs laid out by the sled, and these the woman indicated to Jon.

“You. This.”

The old man pulled the animal-hide barrier in front of the water basket before he began undressing to wash himself.

Jon busied himself with pulling off his boots. His feet were much colder without the fleece coverings and he was relieved to see the woman hadn’t thrown them away.

The child was sleeping, her curly brown hair peeking out from under the large pile of furs. Her doll lay on top of the bedding close by.

When the man was through washing, he ordered Jon to throw out the water. The woman poured clean water into the basket and began heating it the same way - lowering stones hot from the fire hissing and steaming until the water steamed as well.

The old woman showed him a stone dish in which there was a pulped-up root in a thick lather. When she seemed satisfied he understood that this was a soap to wash with, she withdrew.

Jon had not had a wash since leaving Castle Black and he quickly stripped his clothes off and scrubbed himself with the hot water and lather. The water soon turned brown.

He could hear the old people talking in low murmurs. He was grateful for the animal-skin screen - he did not know if he would have stripped naked otherwise, with wildlings watching him. It was an immense relief to be able to clean the grime of travel off his body.

He was also privately amazed. He had never heard of wildlings washing themselves - in fact he had heard they were dirty people who lived in caves and slept in the dirt.

When he was done, he dried himself on the animal fleece the woman had left him, then reluctantly he pulled his dirty clothes back on.

Without the old man needing to tell him, he disposed of the dirty water outside.

The old folk had tucked themselves up under the furs on the other side of the tent with the child. 

Chilled from his trip outside, Jon lay down quickly on his sleep roll near the entry and wrapped himself in the furs with a shudder. He lay awake as his body grew warm again.

The fire popped and outside the wind gusted over the tent.

Jon lay for a time wondering at the strangeness of his situation. How long would he live with these people? And how would he fulfil the mission Qhorin had given him if he was to spend all his time helping old people with tending reindeer?

He turned over finally. It felt very good indeed to be freshly-washed and warm in the tent while the wind blew outside. His thoughts turned again to Qhorin Halfhand. 

_"Mance means to use magic we have no knowledge of." The wind rushed by them, tearing at their black cloaks, and Qhorin's words were for Jon alone. "He will march on the wall, and when he does, one brother inside his army will be worth a thousand marching against it. The wildings will take an oathbreaker."_

_Jon tried to look over his shoulder at Qhorin behind him, but his arms were bound and he was led along by a rope which the wildling girl held. She walked ahead of them, her figure half-obscured in the blasting sleet, the line of rope connecting Jon to her pulling taut the moment Jon's step slowed._

_"I'm not an oathbreaker," Jon said fiercely out the side of his mouth._

_"Listen to me, boy. You earn their trust. Get as close as you can to Mance Rayder. You find out their numbers, how many men of fighting age, their divisions, their weapons. What magic Mance seeks in the Frostfangs. How he means to breach the wall. You stay with them as long as you can. Then when you see an opportunity to run, you run. Run back to the Wall. Tell the Lord Commander all you've learned."_

_Jon put his head down, the snow blinding him._

_"Do you understand your orders?” Qhorin’s voice came to him through the blasting wind. “Boy?”_

~*~

The old man woke him in the morning while it was still dark. 

Tala and the child were still asleep.

Jon put on his boots and coat. He wrapped his boots in the strips of sheep fleece.

Outside, the old man lit a torch. It was so dark, it might as well have still been deepest night. 

They made their way to the reindeer pen. The fresh-fallen snow came up to the knee. The old man stumbled at one point, dragging his lame leg, but even as Jon reached to stop him falling, the man righted himself and hobbled on.

The reindeer (there were twelve of them) were all waiting at the wattle fence.

“Do you know how to milk an animal?” the old man asked.

Jon had milked the cows and goats at Castle Black. Raw recruits had to do all sorts of menial work for the castle until they took the black. 

The old man handed him a wooden milking pail.

Jon went into the pen and Arild pointed out the females, which had antlers like the males, antlers that Jon warily avoided as he squatted down and felt for the udders. He tried awkwardly to position the bowl, his eyes straining to see in the dimness, until Arild told him to hold the bowl in one hand and to milk with his other hand.

The reindeers stamped and shifted away from his cold hands. Jon sorely missed his gloves, which had vanished along with the rest of his blacks the day he’d arrived in the camp. 

Ten out of the twelve beasts were female. It took until the sky was lightening for Jon to be done. He carried the pail of milk carefully out of the pen.

“As slow as you are, the child could have done it quicker,” Arild said.

He scattered some kind of meal onto the ground for the reindeer to eat, then he opened the pen and set them loose.

As the sky became streaked with pink and gold, Arild sent Jon to chop firewood at a stump near the wood’s edge.

Jon preferred chopping wood to milking reindeer. At least the exertion warmed him. He swung the stone axe in a steady rhythm, the familiar labour and the hushed snowy stillness of his surrounds allowed his mind to quiet. This was a relief. It seemed his thoughts had not stopped anxiously churning since he had taken Ygritte for his prisoner.

He stopped only to blow on his hands, raw from the cold.

Finally the old man came and fetched him, and Jon felt foolish pride when Arild’s eyebrows rose as he saw the size of the woodpile.

Jon stood like a pack mule as Arild piled the chopped wood into his arms, then the old man took an armful of his own and they returned to the tent where the Tala had the fire lit and breakfast waiting.

*

After breakfast, Arild set Jon to shovelled dung out of the reindeer pen. The old man was particular about where the dung should be stored, as he used it for fuel.

When that was done, Arild sent Jon into the woods with the small stone axe and an order to collect willow branches. 

“Here, put it here,” Arild said, gesturing into the pen when Jon returned with his first bundle.

Jon saw that a portion of the wattle fence was damaged. Most likely the old man intended to use the willow to repair it.

The morning passed that way, with Jon making trips to and from the forest, cutting down willow branches and stacking them in a pile, then carrying the wood back in batches to the reindeer pen. In the forest, the reindeer were stripping lichen off the trees and paid Jon no mind.

Not long into the work, Jon found some tough woody vine wrapped around the aspen trees and he used this to lash the cut branches together. He could then drag one large pile instead of having to make multiple trips carrying the wood in batches.

The snow in places came up to his thighs. His breeches were sodden, his hands purple with cold.

He’d just finished dragging another bundle into the pen when he heard the old man call him.

He picked up the axe which he’d tucked on the top of the pile of branches, then he stepped out of the reindeer pen. 

Arild was standing outside the tent with Larrs, the second in command of Tormund’s pack. 

Jon trudged through the furrow in the snow towards the men.

“You’re being kept busy here, Jon Snow?” Larrs said.

“Yes, sir.” Jon sniffed and nodded, looking between the two men.

Tala appeared at the tent entrance. She took one look at Jon, and then spoke rapidly to Arild.

Then both the men were looking at Jon’s hands.

“You’ve no gloves, boy?” Larrs said. “Look at the state of you.”

Jon tucked the axe handle under the crook of his arm and rubbed his hands together. “I lost them, sir.”

“You’ll lose your fingers next.” Larrs looked at the old man. “Are there any gloves for him to be going on with? Or else I can find him some - ” 

“We’ll have a pair of gloves for him,” Arild said irritably. He ducked into the tent. Tala spoke again, waving to Larrs and Jon to come inside.

“He’s going hunting,” Larrs said to her. He spoke a couple of words in her language. 

Arild returned with the gloves. Jon pulled one on with stiff fingers. 

Now Arild was looking Jon over with a frown.

“Have you no other clothes?” 

Jon told him he didn’t.

“You’ll be needing those too I suppose?” Arild said angrily.

Jon thought perhaps the old man was embarrassed because of the presence of the second-in-command. Or just as likely, he simply resented having to provide Jon with yet more. 

Being resented in this way was not new to Jon, and even if it had been more than a year since he’d last seen Winterfell, the old man’s words awoke a familiar hot emotion in his breast, as fresh as if he had received some cold remark from Lady Catelyn only yesterday. 

Jon finished pulling on the gloves, secretly feeling that he would rather have gone without them. He dearly wished he could take nothing more from these people. He was an intruder, it was true. He was not a wildling. They had no reason to trust him, no reason to wish to share their food or their home with him. He would rather have lived on his own.

“I’ll see to his clothes,” Larrs said. “Come, Jon.”

*

A tall stone cairn marked the entrance to the training yard and a low wall of stacked stone encircled the fifty or so men and boys who were sparring. 

They were divided into three different groups, a man at the head of each, giving instruction. Most of them fought with wooden spears.

Jon observed them with interest. He hadn’t been to this part of the camp the previous day. He was powerfully curious to know how Mance Rayder was training his army. Were these hardened warriors, or unskilled men who’d not held a weapon before?

Larrs allowed Jon to watch the men sparring for a short while before he led him to a marquee tent where groups of people sat knapping flint for arrowheads.

“You said you could handle a bow?” He lifted a recurve composite bow down from a rack and handed it to Jon. “You bring it back when you’re finished today.”

He left the tent, with an instruction for Jon to wait.

“I hear they’ve got you minding reindeer.”

Jon turned at the voice. 

Ygritte came in from the training yard, pushing back her hood. She had a bow and quiver slung over her shoulder.

“Come on, then. I’m to teach you how to hunt.” She glanced at Jon’s wet breeches. “You look half-frozen. Did they make you sleep outside with the reindeer?”

“I’m going with Larrs,” Jon said. “And I know how to hunt.”

“Then why did Larrs ask _me_ to show you?” Ygritte’s brow scrunched as she considered Jon, a faintly pitying look, like he was simple. “You’d best just do as you’re told, Jon Snow. Do you think an Utvet has time to teach you to hunt hares?” She hitched up the string of her bow and turned. “You have a very high opinion of yourself, your lordship -”

“Don’t call me that,” Jon said. 

Ygritte just tucked the collar of her coat under her chin and sauntered away from him.

“You can use my arrows,” she said over her shoulder.

After a moment’s hesitation, Jon followed her.

*

“I said the neck.” Ygritte picked up the hare by its hind legs and quickly broke its neck. She pulled Jon’s arrow out of its shoulder. 

“I suppose you can show me how that’s done,” Jon said, dropping his bow arm to his side.

She tied up the animal’s feet and slung it over her shoulder with the four others they’d shot.

The novelty of hunting with a girl had quickly worn off. If he’d been expecting her to go faint at the sight of blood, that had quickly been put paid to after she’d killed the first hare and then questioned him to see if he knew how to skin and butcher it. 

“Seems you do better with a sword,” she said smugly, turning the arrow idly between her fingers. “Only you can’t catch a hare with a sword, can you?” 

She cocked her head. The wind gusted over her, ruffling the fur of the hares draped over her shoulder. The white fur might have been the snowy trim of a lady’s cape.

She opened her coat with her free hand and reached in to take out a small knife from a belt round her waist. The wind blew at her undershift, the soft doeskin clinging to her breast.

She closed her coat. Jon looked up into her eyes, startled. He looked away just as quickly, his guts squirming guiltily at having been caught staring. 

She moved towards him, and when she had come too close, Jon stepped back carefully, as he might have done from an armed opponent. His face was hot.

There was a pause.

Like a fool, he looked down at the bow in his hand and tested the tie of the bowstring with his thumb.

“What is it?” she said.

“Nothing.”

“Is it because you’ve never been with a girl?” She lowered her voice so it was coaxing, insinuating. “I could teach you that as well.”

“I don’t need teaching.”

“Oh no?”

She moved closer. He stepped back.

“I saw you kill Qhorin Halfhand,” Ygritte said. “But you’re afraid now?”

Jon forced himself to meet her eye.

“I’m not afraid.”

Her hand moved to the tie of her coat. “You want to look, don’t you? You can, if you like. You’re a free man. And I’m a free woman.”

A horn blew somewhere nearby. There came the fast thumping of feet, the sound of a running animal. Then a large grey dog was rushing towards them, blood on its muzzle.

Jon reached for his sword unthinkingly, and finding his belt empty, fumbled with his bow. He never would have had an arrow notched in time. 

“No.” Ygritte took hold of his arm and drew him back a step into the undergrowth.

The dog rushed past them and off down the slope, scattering snow everywhere.

“It’s a hunt,” she said. 

Now Jon could hear other hounds barking. Again the horn sounded. It was a hunting horn, but it might as well have been a wildling war horn. It made the hairs on the back of Jon’s neck stand up.

A group of men came down through the trees, three dogs bounding ahead of them.

Jon recognised one of the wildlings at the front of the party - it was the youth he’d nearly fought with the day before.

It was obvious the young man had recognised him as well. He kept his footing easily as he trod his way down the steep slope of ferns. He carried a brace of pheasants in one hand.

“Haig-ferdes,” Ygritte said to Jon in an undertone. “Dog tribe.”

“No children to spar with today, crow?” the youth called.

“D’you know him?” Ygritte said.

“Hare,” one of the men called. He had a small doe slung over his shoulders and he came more slowly down the slope.

“This is him.” Hare gestured to Jon with his spear. “The crow.”

The rest of the men had reached the path. Their dogs came weaving around their legs.

A man with a black beard and a long pike came closer to Jon. He snuffed at the air.

“Tormund’s taken charge of him, then.”

“Why’s he free to roam around?” Hare said.

“Leave it,” the man with the doe said shortly. He walked past Jon and Ygritte and the other men followed.

The young man did not follow immediately.

“What are you doing out here?” he said to Ygritte.

“What’s it look like?” Ygritte held up the arrow.

“Shouldn’t a man be watching him?” 

“What, d’you mean a man like _you?_ ” The derision was plain in her voice.

The youth took a step towards Ygritte. Jon put himself between them.

“We don’t want trouble,” Jon said. He swept a seemingly-casual look over the young man, looking for weapons other than the spear in his hand, calculating how best he might defend himself if this turned into a fight.

“No, I’m sure,” Hare said with a slight smile, moving his spear to his other hand. “Tormund might have taken you in, but you still look like a crow. You stink like a crow.” He looked past Jon’s shoulder, at Ygritte. “And you’d do well to keep away from him.”

“You’d do well to follow orders when they’re given you,” Ygritte said.

“Hare!” a man’s voice called.

“Best run along,” Ygritte said.

Hare stepped slowly away from Jon.

“I’ll be keeping my eye on you, crow.”

*

Jon and Ygritte parted ways outside the training ground after Jon had returned his bow. Ygritte gave him three of the hares they’d caught.

He made his way back to Arild and Tala’s tent. The smell of cook fires was smokey on the cold air. His breath huffed from his mouth in clouds as he walked.

Arild and Tala’s tent came into view, faintly glowing with the fire inside. The reindeer were visible among the trees.

Jon paused outside the tent entrance, feeling it would be rude to go in unannounced. He was also reluctant to call to the old woman. To use her name, Tala, seemed too forward.

“Hello?” he called instead.

After a moment the flap of deerhide lifted and the old woman smiled at him.

“Jon,” she said, pronouncing his name in her heavy accent. She waved him in.

Jon ducked inside and stood on the damp mat by the entrance, mindful this time of the snow crusting his boots.

The child had been sitting at the table but at the sight of Jon she’d gone running to the pile of furs.

Jon was relieved to see the old man wasn’t there. 

He slung the hares down from his shoulder and held them out to Tala. 

She looked at them and made a noise of approval, nodding.

Jon wanted her to understand that he was giving the hares to her. 

He did not know if these people observed the guest right, but they had fed him, taken him into their home. He’d been taught the laws of guest right since he was a child, just as Robb and the other Stark children had. 

Three hares seemed a meagre gift for a guest to offer their host, but Jon had nothing else of value to give the woman.

Tala was saying something in her language as she returned to a wooden rack where she seemed to be arranging herbs to dry. 

Jon was left holding out the hares. He was sure that she had not understood.

He had been taught that the custom of guest right began with the First Men. Arild had said the old woman’s tribe came from further north. Perhaps those wildlings no longer kept the ways of the First Men.

“Ma’am,” he tried again.

She looked up from her bundles of herbs.

“Ma’am. For you.” Jon held the hares out to her again deliberately. When she did not come to take them, he gestured to the hares, then to her, and to the child hiding in the furs.

“For you,” he repeated.

She returned his look impassively.

Perhaps she would not accept them because she did not trust him.

But then, to his relief, she came and took the white hares from him. She spoke some words and nodded her head.

There were clean clothes for Jon. They were in a stack atop his sleep roll which he’d folded that morning.

Tala drew his attention to the clothes once she had hung up the hares.

Jon sat and took off his boots, then he went directly to look at the clothes. He had been wearing wet breeches all day and even his shyness in front of the old woman didn’t stop him from stripping them off and pulling on the dry pair of fur breeches on top of the clothes pile. The breeches were held up with a drawstring round the waist which he quickly knotted. 

There was also a soft buckskin shirt and two strips of fur-lined leather which looked wide enough to wrap round his boots.

Jon pulled his coat back on lastly. He tried as best he could to thank the old woman.

He saw the stack of firewood near the pit and went out to bring her more, and then, lacking any other work to do, he gathered kindling from the forest.

By the time he was done, it was almost dark.

When Arild brought Jon in for dinner, Jon saw with satisfaction that Tala had skinned and butchered the hares and she was cooking them in a pan with herbs and fat.

*

A boy came for Jon after they’d finished dinner.

“I’m to bring Jon Snow to Tormund,” he said, standing just inside the tent, his hood up and covering half his face.

 “Well come inside, you’re letting the heat out,” Arild barked.

The boy came in and waited while Jon put his boots on.

Jon had forgotten that Tormund would scent mark him again. He thought about the small, cold tent, and the man lying close behind him. 

He followed the boy out into the snow.

“You look different,” the boy said.

Jon glanced at him. “Eh?” 

The boy pushed his hood back. “Micah.” He gestured awkwardly to his face. “I brought you your clothes, remember?”

“Oh.” Jon nodded. He only dimly remembered the boy.

“You wouldn’t know you were a Crow now,” Micah said, staring at Jon as they walked.

“I’m not a - ” It felt strange to Jon to use the term, “ - a Crow anymore.”

“No, I know,” the boy said hurriedly. “You’re living with the witch, then?”

“Witch?” Jon squinted at the boy.

“Her.” Micah nodded over his shoulder, back the way they’d come. “Old Arild’s mate.”

“She’s not a witch.” Jon frowned. “Is she?”

“’Course she is. She gives my ma gul for my brother.” 

Jon had no idea what _gul_ was.

“Will more Crows be coming, do you think?” Micah said. “Coming to attack us, I mean?”

Jon didn’t answer immediately. They kept walking. 

“Why d’you think that?” he said finally.

“They said - there was a big army of Crows that come from the Wall.”

When Jon made no answer, the boy went on, “You’ve seen it, then? The Wall?” 

 

“Aye,” Jon said, wearying a bit of the boy’s questions.

They’d reached the main camp and there were many more people about.

“Which castle do you come from?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“I heard there were nineteen castles - sorry!” The boy had nearly collided with someone while he wasn’t watching where he was going. He jogged back to Jon’s side. “Is it true the Crows pour hot oil down on people when they get too close to the Wall?”

It was a relief when Jon caught sight of Tormund speaking with a group of men outside the communal tent of his pack.

“I brought him,” Micah announced loudly.

The men turned their heads to stare at Jon.

“Good. Go on now.” Tormund cuffed Micah’s head. The boy went away reluctantly.

“You have him with Old Arild, then,” one of the men said, still staring at Jon, speaking as if Jon could not hear. 

The stares of the men were not friendly. They were adult males. All of them carried long spears. They looked like they had stepped right out of the tales told at supper in Castle Black’s common hall.

Tormund moved between the men, towards Jon. “You’ve been making yourself useful, Jon Snow?”

“Aye, sir.”

“We’ll finish this later,” Tormund said to his men.

*

“You do not smell of me,” Tormund said as they went into the small tent they’d used the day before. “It wears off quickly.” 

A fire was burning in the pit. It was warm at least, not frigid cold as it had been yesterday.

Tormund began undoing his coat.

Jon hesitated for a moment, then undid his coat as well. He watched his own hands perform the task, feeling strangely numb, his dread mounting.

He knew he was going to embarrass himself again. He felt as if he should have spent time during the day preparing for this. How had he forgotten that he would be marked by the alpha again?

Tormund went and sat down on the bedding. He rested his elbows on his knees and looked up at Jon for a moment.

“Come, then, little crow, let’s have it.”

Jon went and knelt next to him. The sleeping area was a shallow trench dug in the ground, covered with a waterproof animal skin, then packed with a layer of straw and grass. Over this the furs were spread.

The furs smelled richly of Tormund's scent, which was much more recognisable to Jon after being marked by the alpha once already.

They lay down, the man close against Jon's back.

“Relax,” Tormund said quietly.

Jon fixed his eyes on the leaping flames of the fire.

_“Come, Lady Piggy, let's hear you squeal.” Ser Alliser Thorne whipped the cane through the air again, striking Sam's back._

_Jon flinched in sympathy. Grenn, Pyp and the other two boys who'd been involved stood nearby in the dank armoury, pulling at their shirts and rubbing their arses, wincing. They'd already had their punishment. Thorne always kept Jon until last._

_Sam shrieked as the cane hit him again and again, spots of blood showing through his shirt._

_"Enough," Thorne spat in disgust when he was finished._

_Sam straightened up and stumbled away from the table, his face wet with tears._

_"You can all thank Lady Piggy and her bastard Lord for this," Thorne said, turning to face them, tapping the cane against his leg. He was not much out of breath. His mean, grey eyes landed on Jon._

_"Clear out, the rest of you," he said. "Lord Snow wants special treatment. A highborn lord, punished like a commoner? I don't know how he'll bear the shame of it."_

_The lads shuffled out, Sam last of all. Jon could feel Sam's eyes seeking his, trying to give him a consolatory look, but Jon kept his eyes down, knowing Thorne saw everything._

_When they were gone, Thorne shut the door._

_Jon stood unmoving, his eyes down, his hands clasped in front of him._

_"Well, Lord Snow," Thorne said quietly. He flexed the cane between his gloved hands. "Here we are again. Go to the bench."_

_Jon went._

_"Shirt off," Thorne said, moving up behind Jon. Jon hated the feeling of the big alpha standing at this back._

_Jon pulled his shirt off and laid it aside._

_Thorne moved closer, so close his cloak brushed the backs of Jon's boots._

_"You challenge me as alpha, boy?" Thorne said._

_"No, sir."_

_Thorne's gloved hand gripped the nape of Jon's neck suddenly, a hard grip._

_"You're lucky I don't have you roll over and give me your belly," Thorne said._

_Jon breathed and stared ahead at the wall._

_Thorne tightened his grip for a moment and then released Jon's neck. "Drop your breeches."_

_Jon unfastened his breeches and pushed them down enough to expose his arse. None of the other lads had to take it on the bare arse._

_"Bend over, bastard."_

_Jon did as he was told. He gripped the edge of the table._

_Thorne stepped back. He wanted a good distance to swing his cane._

_The cane whipped through the air and struck Jon on the buttocks._

_He was never prepared for it, the pain of it always felt new. There was no hardening yourself to the shock of it._

_The cane whipped his flesh and the pain was like wet heat, a wet agony that could not be escaped._

_Jon wasn’t keeping count, but he knew already that he was getting more than the others._

_It seemed to go on forever._

_A small rough high noise finally escaped between Jon's clenched teeth as the cane hit him._

_Thorne paused._

_Jon could hear the man's uneven breathing._

_Jon was sweating, trembling, his fingers gripping the table edge tight, his eyes screwed tight-shut._

_The cane came to rest lightly across the small of Jon's back._

_"Would you like some more, Lord Snow?"_

_"No, sir," Jon said in a clogged voice._

_"What was that?"_

_"No, sir," Jon said more clearly. His back and arse were on fire, a wet blazing heat - his arse was the worst._

_The cane moved off him and then Thorne gripped him by the nape of the neck again._

_"Are you an alpha here, Lord Snow?"_

_Jon swallowed. “No, sir.”_

_“No. You're not. You're some seed your mother would have done better to swallow. I'm the only alpha in that yard, do you understand me?”_

_“Yes, sir.”_

_The alpha tang of Thorne's scent hung thick in the air._

_Thorne released him._

_“Go on, get out of my sight.”_

_Jon straightened up stiffly, wiped his eyes quickly on his arm, pulled up his breeches, the fabric of his smallclothes dragging over his raw flesh. He didn't stop to lace his breeches, wanting only to get out of the armoury as quickly as possible. He pulled his shirt on over his head -_

“Be easy, boy,” Tormund rumbled quietly. His large hand rubbed firmly between Jon’s shoulder blades, trying to relax him.

Jon realised he had his face turned into the furs and he was breathing shallowly, his body held rigid.

He turned his head so his mouth was not in the clammy smother of the furs and he forced himself to breathe deep and slow, forced his shoulders to relax. He could smell Tormund’s scent on him.

“There,” Tormund murmured.

Jon’s face burned with humiliation. He hated behaving this way in front of an alpha.

“I’m sorry,” he said roughly.

“You’ve no need to apologise.” Tormund shifted slightly behind Jon. “Come. That’s enough.”

He sat up and Jon did the same. 

They dressed in silence, then Tormund bent and put fresh wood on the fire. He took a seat on one of the logs by the fire and gestured to the opposite log. Jon went and sat.

“Young Ygritte took you hunting?”

“Yes.”

Tormund had picked up a knife and a small piece of wood and he began carefully shaving slivers off.

“You like this girl,” he said. “You spared her life when the Halfhand ordered you to kill her.”

Jon looked up in surprise. 

“Yes.” Tormund brought the lump of wood to his lips and blew off stray flakes of shaving. “She told Mance how it was. You disobeyed the orders of the Halfhand. You took her prisoner, but you could not bring yourself to kill her.”

Jon looked into the fire. For a moment he saw Ygritte knelt before him, her red hair spilling out of her coat, her pale, narrow face, her lips bloodless drawn tight as his sword resting on her neck. 

_“Bastard! Do it!”_

“She was ready to die,” Jon said quietly.

“Of course. She is of Fjolvar.” Tormund shifted his large booted feet, settled his elbows on his knees. “She is a fine little spearwife.” He turned the lump of wood this way and that in the firelight.


End file.
